Walletmor - some questions

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I have only one question regarding the Walletmor implant, and it’s a simple one:

Is it a conversion?

It’s not just curiosity. It matters for the following reason:

Given that Amal has explained quite clearly how EMV wants nothing to do with implants, have very strict rules that applicants must follow to be allowed onto their network, and will revoke access to the network to those who try to subvert those rules in a hearbeat, Walletmor must logically fall in one of the following four categories:

  • They sell converted chips: they bought a bunch of different third-party contactless payment tokens, found out which had a chip compatible with the narrow Flex antenna, and uses those to create “perfect” conversions. Or rather, Amal did and does on their behalf.

    That would be the best realistic scenario: not much EMV can do about it, provided the maker of the original payment token isn’t aware of what’s going on with their tokens and doesn’t consent explicitely to the conversion, lest they themselves get striken off the EMV network.

    With one caveat however: when Amal converts a payment token, he sells a service. When Walletmor sells a converted chip, they sell a product. I can very well see EMV buy one, see who it belongs to, and tell that company to never sell a single payment token to Walletmor ever again or else. Walletmor runs out of chips to convert, goes tits ups, and the implantees are left with no customer support.

  • They somehow found a way to get EMV to allow them on their network, but they’re selling implants without telling them, hush-hush-like. That’s the worst case scenario: EMV will soon find out and strike them off the network, and all their existing customers with them. Not good.

  • They found a loophole in Polish law that lets them force EMV to allow them on the network in full knowledge of what they sells. That’d be good in the short term, but not a very healthy business model: they’d essentially be flipping a huge bird at EMV, which no doubt would look at plugging the loophole any way possible as soon as possible. Since EMV probably has the meant to buy as many Polish powers-that-be as they want, it’d only be a matter of time before Walletmor’s business model collapses.

  • Walletmor managed to convince EMV to allow implants on the network: I highly doubt it. Amal’s tried it for years unsuccessfully, and is still trying as far as I know.

So which is it?

I’m tempted to get their payment chip when it comes out. I’ve come to realize the narrow Flex format is a good compromise for a chip with a 3 or 4 year expiry period: it’s not too complicated or painful to install or remove, so I’m coming around to that concept.

But I sure ain’t implanting it if Walletmor’s business model is dodgy and puts my ability to use my Walletmor implant or get support from Walletmor in jeopardy. The above reflexion is cause for concern.

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22

It’s an iCard conversion. Afaik.

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Ah yes, thanks. I see this has been discussed 2 hours ago. Thing is, the questions I had occurred to me in the bike, on my way back from work. I just arrived home and posted it all without reading up. So much for me :slight_smile:

It leaves the question of Walletmor being at the mercy of EMV twisting iCard’s arm into not servicing them - or iCard preemptively deciding to stop supplying Walletmor themselves, just in case.

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The whole things is poorly planned and doesn’t inspire confidence.

I am top of the list when it comes to those wanting to get a payment based implant but this doesn’t feel well planned or anywhere near well presented enough for me to want to place it in my body.

In a highly competitive market like financial services the website should look perfect, the questions should all be answered and the videos should be enticing.
Instead we’ve got two dude in their respective offices talking on two terrible webcams about barely fully formed ideas.

I’d rather wait a year and see a perfect product with epic marketing come to market than be a disappointed early adopter when I’m cutting the thing back out.

Don’t peak to soon guys. That’s the classic killer for startups.

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Hmm… I don’t fully agree with that, at least from my customer point of view.
I wouldn’t say DT is all shiny, perfect marketing - it’s straight, clean, makes no big promises and you can see it’s a guy who is passionate about what he does and tinkers around to create the best possible products. It’s very down-to-earth, and if you add the incredible communication and customer support here, it’s just the perfect, honest company for me.
My problem with the Walletmor page is rather that it’s in the uncanny valley between simple, low-budget marketing and shiny-as-hell-because-we-can-afford-it. It looks like it’s all flashy and stylish, but delivers little information while making too big promises in the same instant. That just feels shady (even if the company isn’t), because shady companies do the same.

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I’m looking at that page, which Amal recently posted, and specifically this bit:

Where can I have an implant injected?

The organization of the implant procedure is on the user’s side, however, we recommend that the implant procedure be performed by one of our trusted specialists:

– MHE Berlin GmbH&Co.KG, Medical Hair Esthetics, Berlin, Germany
– Medical Hair Esthetics, Warsaw, Poland
– Medical Hair Esthetics, Lublin, Poland

Those are hair transplant clinics. That’s interesting: I didn’t think of them as valid options for implant installers, but after all why not.

Did Walletmor work out a deal with that particular chain? Can one get in touch with them for other implant jobs?

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I would guess, that walletmor is trying to appear more “vanilla” to the common folk, so I would guess less “choose your own adventure” and more “here’s the thing we are approved to do”

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I’m actually a bit shocked by that…
I mean, bodymod specialists and trained piercers have been succesfully installing DT implants for quite a while now, there are trusted partners, they know what they do and all that, and now Walletmor recommends some hair transplant clinics that might have never ever put a “real” implant into someone?
Honestly… I’ve been to some clinics recently, I’ve been to a trained cosmetican doing electroepilation (working with little needles that basically electrocute your hair follicles) and such, and none of those places was near as professional nor sterile as my bodymodder’s studio.

edit: had a look at the german homepage, and it looks… unprofessional at least.
The page says something about 6 locations in germany, the map directly above it lists only one (Berlin). On the “about us” page, it shows a picture of a hair transplantation surgeon who did some celebrities and has suspicious promises on his homepage (and who lives in Munich, not Berlin), and it says something about “several surgeons, partly with 20 years of experience”. No names, no pictures, nothing. Several informational links on the page lead to 404-pages. They promote some sort of autohaemotherapy, which is mostly unproven to do anything at all.

And, just because I love this advertising-speech… they say that “More and more often we find that a well-groomed and aesthetic appearance facilitates interpersonal contacts” :woman_facepalming:

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You’re just jealous because you’re not a celebrity (yet).

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pfff
pfff184×221 11.3 KB

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I’ll admit, I’m still suprised that walletmor has the picture of a hologram display coming out of someone’s wrist

I get it, its futuristic science-y shit , and most should know you aren’t getting some minority report implant

But still rubs me the wrong way and I can’t quite put it in words

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I’m not quite sure if we here are the “target audience” of Walletmor… because there are honestly some things that look strange for people already in this community.

But then again, who might be the target audience for something that requires yourself to be cut open to implant an experimental device under your skin? I thought all those crazy people were already over here :wink:

edit: I still think some of the claims in the FAQ can be a bit dangerous… specifically:

  • Walletmor can not lead to infections (this is a very dangerous claim, because every tiny wound on the body can actually lead to an infection, no matter how clean the implant itself is - that’s why every serious piercer informs you about potential risk of infection and even lets you sign that you understood that)
  • in one point, it is said that the implant comes in a chlorhexidine solution, in the next point it is claimed that the implant is sterile (though chlorhexidine is not used for sterilisation, so the implant is sanitized - I’m fine with that, but it’s a difference that might be important)

And there is too much… dunno, advertising stuff… hard to tell, it just feels so “standard”, in a way.
What I really loved about DT when I first visited the page, was that very simple, clean optic and the slogan “the password / computer login / key / whatever you’ll never lose”. Just one sentence, but it really caught my eye because of its simplicity. On the Walletmor page, I see nice colourful stock photos, the usual “cyber-ish” design I just can’t really take serious (like the hologram display or the two clasping hands - where the human hand actually goes through the digital one), and the usual kind of text many companies with innovative products (or companies who claim their products to be innovative) use. It feels… replacable.

I think the product itself is very promising, and it’s made by Amal, so I totally trust its safety and all, but to be honest Amal is the only reason why I don’t think the whole homepage is suspicious :smile:

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If it wasn’t for amals rep I’d say it’s an obvious fake :smiley:

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That and other claims that invite a lawsuit:

  • safety tests that excludes the risk of any infection and disease
  • made of sterilized, bio-safe materials that do not enter into reaction with the human body. Thus, there is no risk of catching a disease or getting infected.
  • the risk of any potential fraud is entirely eliminated
  • completely safe for your health and friendly to the body
  • Clinically clear
  • Your health is in no way endangered
  • highest degree of clinical cleanliness
  • this risk of losses is reduced to zero

Each and every one of those claims is absolute, therefore easy to contest in court by the first guy who has a mishap. Absolute statements require absolute proof that Walletmore simply cannot provide. Even lipstick manufacturers refrain from making such bold statements.

Of course, Europe isn’t as lawsuit-happy as the US, and there may have been some things that have been lost to translation from Polish. But still, Walletmore opens itself to legal problems by officially making those claims.

Not to mention, as Yeka says, if Amal wasn’t behind this, it all makes it sound like a bullshit website to avoid at all costs.

Finally, some of the statements are rather unfortunate and amusing - but probably due to the site not being native English:

  • BECOME WALLETMOR AMBASSADOR: you know what? I’ve just worked out that “Ambassador” is the name of the implant. Up to now, I thought they had some kind of a program to invite you to become a partner and become a company ambassador…

  • The ambassadorship will be available for purchase in […]: …and I have to pay to be a partner :slight_smile:

  • Walletmor implants are globally acceptable: Meaning “Meh, they’'re not great but they’re kind of okay” :slight_smile:

I understand what they’re trying to say, but they might want to rephrase these things.

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HAH, me too, I thought it was the “beta” testers / first tranche, and encouraged to endorse LOUD and PROUD…

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TBH, That was 100% what I thought it meant too… I never actually caught on to another meaning there and thought they were referring to a “brand ambassador”

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I think they tried to reuse one particular marketing construct - to “become” a product or brand in the sense of becoming one of the happy owners of said product or brand - and it fell flat on its face because, while you can’t literally “become AT&T” or “become Chevrolet”, you can become an ambassador. Especially when the caption is all caps and you can’t tell whether “ambassador” should be read as a proper name or common name.

As for the use of “ambassadorship”, it’s either a mistranslation or a cute joke that doesn’t work because it reinforces the above misunderstanding.

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Oh hell… thanks for clarifying that! I - like obviously most others - thought of some “special program”, similar to becoming a Titan backer or such… :woman_facepalming: :smile:

Seriously, no matter how good the product will be, someone really has to take care of the homepage and general publicity stuff in that company…

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I completely agree with your point.

But we can’t forget that Walletmoor wants to get into mainstream market…
And while we’re talking mainstream, having hair transplant surgery or a boob job are completely acceptable things, thus “those places must be super good”…
While getting a nipple ring is a heinous deviation from a demented person, so “places who do that must be unprofessional”.

Sheeple don’t think. They just follow the path of less brain-effort. And that path tells them hair clinics are better, because imbecile reasons.

It saddens me, and I would love to see more effort into fixing the body mod stigma.

But I do get their point. They are here to crack into a new market so closed already… that adding more stigma to it is definitely not gonna help it!

And then… maybe we can ride that wave to try and get body mod less stigmatised later on as well…

But I sure do get your point!

Especially since I’ve seen the insides of a couple of those clinics before… and oh boy, that is terrible.

Just… terrible.

I wouldn’t get my nails trimmed at some of those hair clinics in fear of getting an infection!

Most of us thought it was a fake, even with Amal’s picture in it, until @amal actually endorsed them here! :rofl:

In short, not to repeat so many great mentions here…

I do love the Idea of the product, but not a big fan of how the company presents itself.
Actually, not a fan at all. I sure hate brute-force-marketing like they’re using.

But then I got to think that… Ironically, we are not it’s public audience.
So me getting angry at them for treating their customers like idiots is the same as me getting angry at a baby food manufacturer for calling it’s consumer “big boooys”.

If it did not had Amal involved I would not give it two whiffs…
He’s the only reason I even try to understand Walletmor…

It actually took me a while to see that as well!
The idea of “joining an ambassador programme” is one that will feel most people with the feeling that they should be treated with something special in return…

Just a little bit more of abusive marketing techniques.
:roll_eyes:

Now that this rant is out of my system…

Yes, I attempted approaching cosmetic surgeons for serious stuff, especially because you can’t find any more body mod artists in UK willing to do flex installs.

Unfortunately I’ve met only surgeons who were either afraid of risking something non FDA approved, thus risking their careers, or surgeons who… well, let’s say I trusted more a random friend than them! :wink:

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